There are a number of distress signaling devices that are readily available to imperiled individuals who may be lost at sea or on land as a means of summoning search and rescue operations. The vast oceanic environment and large global landscape makes it extremely difficult to locate one or more individuals who may be lost. Search operations are frequently conducted by marine vessels, aircrafts, and land vehicles in an effort to cover a larger search area. Search teams often face difficult challenges and a variety of hurdles as they undergo their searching efforts. For example, the difficulty of finding lost individuals are often compounded by oceanic waves and debris, and natural land obstacles such as trees, brushes, and hills. Bad weather conditions can also hinder the search, thus increasing the amount of time spent searching.
Locating lost individuals can be even more challenging during military combat or operations. In military action, its important for the individual requesting aid to provide a discrete, distress signal without alerting the enemy of the location of the person, or surrounding search aircrafts or vehicles. In certain situations, a distress device may require a different mode of signaling during the night as opposed to daytime. Such devices must be durable, able to withstand extensive wear and tear resulting from exposure, handling, and use.
A large variety of rescue distress devices capable of generating a more visually intense distress signal have been adopted in an effort to overcome these challenging obstacles and to effectively locate an individual who is lost or in need of aid during civilian or military operations. Some examples of such distress devices include portable laser devices, flares, dyes, planar mirrors, incandescent, Xenon, or other strobe lights, and water-activated strobe lights. Most of these conventional devices have certain drawbacks, and many have limited use for military operations. For example, the portable laser devices are generally limited to a very narrow beam and therefore must be accurately aimed at the intended search and rescue personnel. Flares are temporary since they are active for only short periods of time. In addition, flares may have limited use in certain military situations since the flare provide strong visual effects readily seen by unfriendly forces. Planar mirrors are most effective in the presence of sunlight and thus are of limited or no use on cloudy days and during nighttime. Incandescent strobe lights are power inefficient. The water-activated strobe lights typically require water to generate power or activate to the operating circuit.
One popular prior art device is the portable strobe light as disclosed in Clark et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,050. Clark et al. ('050) discloses a portable strobe light used in search and rescue emergency operations. The portable strobe light provides three different operating light modes. The portable strobe light includes a housing with a high intensity xenon bulb, which flashes white light. The portable strobe light includes mechanical interchangeable blue light and infrared light filters that are mechanically maneuvered about the housing to cover the xenon bulb so as to selectively provide an infrared or blue light. Though the portable strobe light may be useful in military operations, its functionality is limited by the use of moveable mechanical parts. Maneuvering the mechanical filters may be hindered over time as the portable strobe light is exposed to the weather, dust, dirt and grime. In addition, the moving parts are subject to damage or breaking when exposed to ongoing wear and tear.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a portable distress lighting device that is lightweight, durable, and includes a plurality of LED'S, efficiently arranged, to provide different signaling lights without the need for positioning mechanically maneuverable filters and a shield. There is also a need for a portable distress lighting device that includes a selective mode of operation with corresponding status indicators.